plonq | A veritable orgy of culinary delight (Reply)

atara and I treated ourselves out to omakase again last night in what is becoming an annual tradition for us. In some ways, omakase is the antithesis of "fast food", and our meal took just over 3 hours from the time we were seated until we had settled the bill. When we have this again, I will tell them what we are planning to order at the time when I make the reservations. I think they would probably appreciate that - especially on a busy night like yesterday.

Dinner itself was the usual eclectic, but delicious mix. While it didn't have any of the sock-rocking treats of past (like the roasted duck or swordfish from previous visits), I was quite satisfied with the mix. It's not that we didn't get blown away by something during dinner, but it was not part of the omakase.

The first course was a plate of mixed appetizers, and arguably the best of the five. Not only was it elegantly arranged, but it had a good mix of chilled treats. There was a fresh oyster on the half-shell with a rice vinegar sauce, edamame, a rice-free Philadelphia roll (smoked salmon and cream cheese rolled in a long, thin strip of cucumber - very pretty, and equally tasty) and (my favourite) chilled, braised bison, thinly sliced and topped with deep-fried ginger.

The next dish was sea robin sashimi. It came with a spicy, rice-vinegar based dipping sauce that included roe, black sesame, and scallions. The mix of flavours worked well together, and the sauce was especially good in my opinion. I drank the last of mine when

atara wasn't looking, then tossed back the remains of hers when she was distracted a second time. Good stuff. =9

The third course was a mixed salad with seared scallops, and topped with shredded taro root. It was served with a very mild vinaigrette that complimented the mix of flavours very well. The scallops were the highlight of the salad, of course. Searing can do wonderful things to a food.

The fourth (main) course was sushi. It came with a spider roll, accompanied by clam, mackerel, fatty tuna and wild salmon nigiri. My only complaint is that the chef went a little overboard with the wasabi on three of the four sushis. The only one that I could properly taste was the tuna (which melted on contact with the tongue - yum! Wonderful stuff), the other three were overpowered by the wasabi.

The last course was a moderately pedestrian dish with green tea ice cream and half a chocolate hockey puck, but we need to back up a step. After the fourth dish, the waitress informed us that our final dish would be a dessert, and she asked if we wanted to order any more sushi or sashimi before dessert arrived. We debated for a minute or two before we settled on a couple orders of butterfish sashimi.

They could rename this dish to "culinary orgasm of the senses" and not be too far from the truth. I daresay this may have spoilt me for any future sashimi; it transcended good. I've had butterfish before, but this time around it was especially delightful, both texturally and flavour-wise. If you have never had butterfish, for goodness sake get out there and order some in your local sushi restaurant. If they don't have it, make a lot of noise and demand that they get it. I can't promise that it will be as good as what we had last night, but I assure you that I have never met a slab of butterfish that I didn't like.